The Ekaru Technology Advisor Vol 6-2 February 2006
An Important Update! We normally write to you just once a month, but we received so many questions about the latest Internet Worm, that we felt the need to write a quick update this week.
An important update since our last Technology Advisor e-newsletter:
There are many news reports in the media about a new and destructive Internet Worm commonly referred to as the Kama Sutra computer virus, which is also known by many other names*.
The Worm spreads by mass mailing itself as an e-mail attachment to the addresses in an infected computers mailbox. As of Wednesday, it was estimated that about 500,000 systems are already infected. The worm causes the keyboard and mouse to freeze up and disables antivirus programs when the computer is restarted, leaving the machine vulnerable. On the third cay of the month (February 3, Midnight), the worm attacks the infected system by wiping out many commonly used files including Microsoft, Adobe, and ZIP files.
Symantec discovered the worm and added it to its live update list on January 17, 2006. If you have completed a live update since then, you should have protection in place on your system. All the other major AntiVirus solutions will have a virus definition available as well.
To verify that your virus definitions are up to date, right click on the Norton AntiVirus icon in the "tray" of your computer (set of icons on the lower right hand corner), Click on "Open Norton AntiVirus", and then check the "Virus Definitions" status to check the date. Click on "Live Update" to update your definitions if necessary. If you use another AntiVirus solution, you will need to follow a similar procedure.
Always Remember:
- Keep your anti-virus protection software up to date, and check that your live updates are occurring. If your AntiVirus subscription runs out, or if your Live Updates are not kept up to date, you are not projected.
- Be wary of any unexpected email attachments - don't open them!
- Keep your O/S patches up to date
- Enforce a password policy on your network
We hope this information is helpful to you.
*The official name from Symantec is W32.Blackmal.E@mm, and it also goes by many other names (CME-24, Win32.Blackmal.F [Computer Associates], Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e [F-Secure], Email-Worm.Win32.Nyxem.e [Kaspersky], W32/MyWife.d@MM [McAfee], W32/MyWife.d@MM!M24 [McAfee], Win32/Mywife.E@mm [Microsoft], W32/Small.KI@mm [Norman], Tearec.A [Panda Software], W32/Nyxem-D [Sophos], WORM_GREW.{A, B} [Trend Micro].
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Sincerely, Introductory Technology Assessment Over 170 local
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